Faux Conceptual Art was done around 1994. It is a work that has both a physical and an online presence. The piece is a proposal for an art show of fake conceptual art works. The physical work is a boxed set of proposal boards for the various pieces. The piece has what may be one of the first DIY web piece called video-affirmations which is a series of text pages that people may print out and paste to their wall. The piece was designed so that an early search engine searching for conceptual art would present this page. At the time this was made there were no web pages of well known conceptual artists work. The work is an information/mis-information work. It also works on the idea of the proposal for an art work or an installation. The inspiration for this work can be traced to Marcel Duchamps' Green Box. ...

Full Description

Faux Conceptual Art was done around 1994. It is a work that has both a physical and an online presence. The piece is a proposal for an art show of fake conceptual art works. The physical work is a boxed set of proposal boards for the various pieces. The piece has what may be one of the first DIY web piece called video-affirmations which is a series of text pages that people may print out and paste to their wall.
The piece was designed so that an early search engine searching for conceptual art would present this page. At the time this was made there were no web pages of well known conceptual artists work. The work is an information/mis-information work. It also works on the idea of the proposal for an art work or an installation. The inspiration for this work can be traced to Marcel Duchamps' Green Box.

One of the challenges of Faux Conceptual Art was to the art market. The site is a teaser. It talks about brand name and signature style in the art market. A deeper discussion might entail the notion of Simulation and Simulacra put forth by Baudrillard.

The aesthetics or style of this work is what I call Punk or Punk Conceptual Art. I imagine it can also be called Neo-Conceptual Art but I think that’s a mis-characterization. Punk is a diminished style. It is small rather than grand. It doesn’t try to create super polished highly crafted art works. It works with the detritus and cast-offs of cheap consumer culture. Much of this style is a critique of the main discourses in contemporary art. It’s an acceptance that there’s no way to create original art works. The truth of these works is that they are all original. What they do is trigger recognition and language games in the minds of the viewer.

For example, the piece, Fibonacci Series with Calculators is a system or a procedure or a set of instructions. The instructions are to draw a spiral on a board. Using four cheap calculators, create the Fibonacci series. Write the numbers on the spiral as you go along. When the calculators can no longer calculate the numbers the piece is finished. It’s a closed system that is somewhat like the logical abstraction for a computer program, a set of instructions that is executed.
There’s quite a bit of potential art in this piece. For instance one could envision adding calculators to make the piece larger. This becomes a mathematical problem; how do you break down the calculation and distribute it to several calculators? The piece can be exhibited on the floor or the wall, as one prefers.
The piece can also function as an installation piece in which a very large spiral can be created directly on the wall or the floor. There is a lot of potential art in this work.

Part of what I was critiquing in Faux Conceptual Art was the idea of a signature style and a brand name within the art discourse. Indeed, the Fibonacci series is associated with the artist Mario Merz . This is rather interesting because the Fibonacci series is among other things a calculation that shows the spiral of growth in nature. It comes from the Renaissance mathematician Leonardo Pisano (Fibonacci) who introduced Arabic numerals to Europe as well as the concept of zero. You might call Merz’s work punk renaissance.

Another piece is a re-staging of a conceptual work by Dennis Oppenheim called, Reading for a Third Degree Burn. The original photo is in black and white. It shows a torso in one photo with a large book covering the chest. The second photo taken several hours later shows the book removed and the evidence of a sunburn around a white area that was covered by the book. My re-construction of the piece uses color photos. I created a fake book with the title Conceptual Art and a list of artists names. When the book is removed there is a red square on my chest. Since the time I did this work there have been several re-stagings and re-creations of conceptual art works by various artists around the world.

Artist Statement

Faux Conceptual Art was done around 1994. It is a work that has both a physical and an online presence. The piece is a proposal for an art show of fake conceptual art works. The physical work is a boxed set of proposal boards for the various pieces. The piece has what may be one of the first DIY web piece called video-affirmations which is a series of text pages that people may print out and paste to their wall.
The piece was designed so that an early search engine searching for conceptual art would present this page. At the time this was made there were no web pages of well known conceptual artists work. The work is an information/mis-information work. It also works on the idea of the proposal for an art work or an installation. The inspiration for this work can be traced to Marcel Duchamps' Green Box.

One of the challenges of Faux Conceptual Art was to the art market. The site is a teaser. It talks about brand name and signature style in the art market. A deeper discussion might entail the notion of Simulation and Simulacra put forth by Baudrillard.

The aesthetics or style of this work is what I call Punk or Punk Conceptual Art. I imagine it can also be called Neo-Conceptual Art but I think that’s a mis-characterization. Punk is a diminished style. It is small rather than grand. It doesn’t try to create super polished highly crafted art works. It works with the detritus and cast-offs of cheap consumer culture. Much of this style is a critique of the main discourses in contemporary art. It’s an acceptance that there’s no way to create original art works. The truth of these works is that they are all original. What they do is trigger recognition and language games in the minds of the viewer.

For example, the piece, Fibonacci Series with Calculators is a system or a procedure or a set of instructions. The instructions are to draw a spiral on a board. Using four cheap calculators, create the Fibonacci series. Write the numbers on the spiral as you go along. When the calculators can no longer calculate the numbers the piece is finished. It’s a closed system that is somewhat like the logical abstraction for a computer program, a set of instructions that is executed.
There’s quite a bit of potential art in this piece. For instance one could envision adding calculators to make the piece larger. This becomes a mathematical problem; how do you break down the calculation and distribute it to several calculators? The piece can be exhibited on the floor or the wall, as one prefers.
The piece can also function as an installation piece in which a very large spiral can be created directly on the wall or the floor. There is a lot of potential art in this work.

Part of what I was critiquing in Faux Conceptual Art was the idea of a signature style and a brand name within the art discourse. Indeed, the Fibonacci series is associated with the artist Mario Merz . This is rather interesting because the Fibonacci series is among other things a calculation that shows the spiral of growth in nature. It comes from the Renaissance mathematician Leonardo Pisano (Fibonacci) who introduced Arabic numerals to Europe as well as the concept of zero. You might call Merz’s work punk renaissance.

Another piece is a re-staging of a conceptual work by Dennis Oppenheim called, Reading for a Third Degree Burn. The original photo is in black and white. It shows a torso in one photo with a large book covering the chest. The second photo taken several hours later shows the book removed and the evidence of a sunburn around a white area that was covered by the book. My re-construction of the piece uses color photos. I created a fake book with the title Conceptual Art and a list of artists names. When the book is removed there is a red square on my chest. Since the time I did this work there have been several re-stagings and re-creations of conceptual art works by various artists around the world.